What is 'Demonetization' Demonetization is the act of stripping a currency unit of its status as legal tender . It occurs whenever there is a change of national currency : The current form or forms of money is pulled from circulation and retired, often to be replaced with new notes or coins. Sometimes, a country completely replaces the old currency with new currency. in circulation until October 1987, when Rs 500 notes were re-introduced, followed by the re-introduction of Rs 1,000 notes in November 2000. However, until 2000-01, the share of high value notes (i.e notes with value greater than Rs 500) was only 26.7 percent of the total currency in circulation. So, what is the immediate impact of the current demonetisation on the people and economy? To be precise: Unsettling. One can see long queues before banks and ATM machines. Workers in the unorganised sector, petty shopkeepers and small businesses are finding it difficult to cope. There is a visi...